Born: July 11, 1899
Mount Vernon, New York
Died: October 1, 1985
North Brooklin, Maine
American essayist and author
E. B. White was one of the most influential modern American essayists, largely through his work for the New Yorker magazine. He also wrote two children’s classics and revised William S. Strunk’s The Elements of Style, widely used in college English courses.
Becoming a writer
Elwyn Brooks White was born on July 11, 1899, in Mount Vernon, New York, the son of a piano manufacturer, Samuel Tilly White, and Jessie Hart. The family was comfortably well off, but not wealthy. Raised with two brothers and three sisters, White attended local public schools in Mount Vernon. He went on to attend Cornell University, graduating in 1921.
White was offered a teaching position at the University of Minnesota, but turned it down because his goal was to become a writer. He worked for the United Press International and the American Legion News Service in 1921 and 1922 and then became a reporter for the Seattle Times in 1922 and 1923. White then worked for two years with the Frank Seaman advertising agency as a production assistant and copywriter. During this time he had poems published in “The Conning Tower” of Franklin P. Adams, the newspaper columnist who helped several talented young people achieve success during the 1920s and 1930s.
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